Showcasing 26 words of Korean origin

Danica Salazar, Executive Editor for Oxford Languages | OUP , attended an exhibition exploring the words of Korean origin that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 2021.

People walking down the bustling Strand in central London recently might have spotted a unique, eye-catching window display. On a long white wall are colourful sheets of paper on which are written words such as chimaek, skinship, bulgogi, and mukbang, in both the Latin alphabet and the Korean Hangul script.

This ‘word wall’ is part of the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK)'s spring exhibition, ‘26, Your Korean Words’, which explores the 26 words of Korean origin that were added to the OED in September 2021. In May, I had the privilege of visiting the exhibition, guided by its curator, Kangin Park, and welcomed by the director of KCCUK, Dr Seunghye Sun.

The OED's recent Korean additions are a result of our ongoing efforts to widen the dictionary’s coverage of different varieties of English spoken worldwide. South Korea is a country where English is neither a majority or official language, and yet still has remarkable impact on modern English vocabulary. This is largely due to the dramatic rise in international popularity of South Korean pop culture and entertainment, a phenomenon known as hallyu or the Korean wave, most recently seen in the global success of Korean films such as the Oscar-winning Parasite, Korean television dramas like the record-breaking Netflix hit Squid Game, and superstar K-pop groups such as BTS and Blackpink.

The exhibition showcases the influence of hallyu on the English lexicon through various displays that show the meaning and usage of each of the 26 Korean words that have made it into the OED. It also puts these words in the proper historical context by including replicas of key texts in the development of the Korean language, such as the Hunminjeongeum, a 15th-century manuscript that introduced Hangul.

As a lexicographer, it was truly gratifying to see such a thoughtful celebration of the dictionary entries I worked on with my colleagues—from Korean borrowings such as aegyo, daebak, and oppa, to distinctly Korean uses of English words like fighting and trot. It was also fascinating to see other Korean words that participants to the exhibition have added to the word wall, words which one day may also find their way into the pages of the OED.